Scores and Reviews

PARKER

91/100

PARKER - Winemaker Christopher Carpenter, who is also responsible for the wines of Lokoya, has fashioned an opaque ruby/purple-colored 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon offering notes of black cherries, black currants, and spicy oak, a medium to full-bodied mouthfeel, low acidity and light but sweet tannin. Another strong effort in this challenging vintage, it should drink well for 10-12 years.

Cardinale’s Cabernet Sauvignon, a blend of 89% Cabernet Sauvignon and 11% Merlot aged in 90% new French oak, has always been one of the most impressive offerings from the Kendall-Jackson portfolio.Robert Parker, Wine Advocate #209 Oct 2013

Cardinale creates a single wine from each vintage. The wine is a limited production Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend. Made from select lots of low-yielding vines, pressing is done in traditional basket presses, with the young wine placed into 100% new, tightly grained, French Chateau styled oak barrels for extensive aging.

Other wines by this producer:

The Grape

Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc,Malbec, and Petit Verdot.

In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.

In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and Australia.

The Region

North Coast's Napa Valley is California's most famous viticultural area (AVA), claiming some of the most expensive agricultural land in the world and producing wines of cult status.

Its 16,000 ha of vines lie over a strip (40 miles long-5 miles wide) of diverse soils (clay, gravely, volcanic), with its northernmost end on the side of Mountain Helena and its foot in San Francisco Bay. The valley is framed by two mountains ranges Vaca (to the north) and Mayacamas (to the south), yet the main climatic influence is the cool wind and fog that is sucked in from San Pablo Bay during the afternoon, allowing grapes to ripen slowly and evenly.

The area enjoys a variety of unique microclimates, as temperatures can vary dramatically as much as 15 degrees, from the north to the south end of the valley. These differences have led to the creation of several sub-AVAs (14 in total) including:

Both the Napa Valley designation and the sub-AVA name must appear on the wine label simultaneously, with the exception of wines from the Carneros AVA, which is shared between the Napa Valley and the Sonoma County.

Cabernet Sauvignon is the undisputed king of Napa grapes, occupying over 45% of the vineyard acreage, followed by (predominantly) Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Riesling, Zinfandel, Merlot, Cab. Franc and to a lesser extent Petite Sirah, Sangiovese, Barbera, Dolcetto.